Category: Teaching

Trashketball

Review kills me. I struggle with finding a good balance between fun and actual, deep, review of ideas we’ve talked about during class. I also like ... Read more

Data as Actionable Information

Continuing on my data-trends this week, I’ve realized (consciously, at least) that when quantitative data is shown to students, it’s a report of so... Read more

Using Confidence Data with Student Responses

I tried something new today with my students – I asked them to rate their confidence in their answers on a 1 (total guess) to 4 (definitely know I ... Read more

If You Have It, Use It

I took the time the other day to show my students what exactly I look at when I’m grading tests. I use standards based grading, so I’m going way de... Read more

The Talk

We had school on Good Friday this year because of snow day accruals, which means we had a ton of students out. I wanted to give one short assessmen... Read more

The Solemn Duty of Educating

Featured image is creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Raed Mansour The community is suffering. Students are frustrated and they... Read more

Why I Quit Teaching

A post caught my attention the other day and I'm usually not one to write response pieces, but I can't stop thinking about this. This post is about... Read more

Double Bind

I nearly lost my temper this morning. One class in particular has some…big personalities. I want to be able to do hands on, interactive work with t... Read more

Find Your Seats

I’m a big believer in letting students make their own decisions as much as they can. In high school, they’re dictated to. A lot. I figure picking s... Read more

Homework is a Red Herring

Polarization is easy to achieve, but it’s hard to undo. Education is riddled with polarizing issues, both political and practical, and the issue of... Read more

Book Giveaway – Thanksgiving Edition

The first major break of the holidays is upon us, and I’m in the mood to do some giveaways. Over the last 18 months, I’ve contributed (along with t... Read more

Flipping so Kids Can Rewind May be a Bad Idea

There are times where I wish I could go back, rewind what happened, and listen again. Daydreamers, you know what I’m talking about. Even though it’... Read more

Improving Questions, Part 2

Before starting this post, please go back and look at Part 1 to get the research justification for the outline below. In an effort to make research... Read more

Improving Questions, Part 1

I’ve been thinking over an idea since I saw this tweet from David Wees which linked a very well-written article defending the Common Core standards... Read more

Flipped Learning and Control

I was able to join some fantastic educators [STRIKEOUT:today] last Friday for a Flipped Learning workshop hosted by the Michigan Association of Sec... Read more

Classroom Landscapes

I love adventure stories. I can’t wait to read the Lord of the Rings series with my kids someday. I’m excited to look at Tolkein’s maps and talk ab... Read more

Static or Interactive Tools?

I think we really need to redefine what it means to interact with something. Part of the problem is that our schools (and even our culture) have de... Read more

Growing Pains

This is a repost of an article I wrote for Brett Clark’s 12 Days of Dreaming series. f you have kids, know people with kids, or work with kids, you... Read more

Avoiding Burnout

Today, I came to the realization that I’m approaching burnout, and that I need to do something to stay healthy for the break and the second semeste... Read more

Reform the School Day to Reform Schools

Schools and children are dictated by the bell schedule. Classes are 57 minutes, except for math and English, which are 87 minutes, because they’re ... Read more

How NOT to Start a Flipped Class

Every day, I carry a small black journal around to jot down thoughts, changes, and quick reminders to myself. It’s something kids find intriguing f... Read more

Reflecting for Learning

Ramsey Musallam has great ideas about using Google Forms to assess a student’s understanding of a video after they watched it. I immediately began ... Read more

Give It Back

After a horrendous start of the year (I won’t go into it here…) I was finally able to introduce the whole flipped classroom idea to my students tod... Read more

Three Responses to Failure

Things go wrong. It’s a fact that we have to embrace and learn to live with if we want to be great teachers. I’ve learned some of my most valuable ... Read more

Flipped Classrooms: Let’s Change The Discussion

NOTE: This is a cross-post of a piece I wrote for SmartBlogs. You can see the original here. Since Sal Khan’s 2011 TED Talk, the Khan Academy has b... Read more

Doing What We Do

It is believed that the average adult makes 35,000 decisions every day. There is even research that suggests that decision fatigue plagues many pro... Read more

Redesigning Learning in a Flipped Classroom

Flickr CC, TheAlieness GiselaGiardinoÂ²Â³ A comment I hear frequently after a visit is, “That looked nothing like what I thought it would.” It’s a ... Read more

No More Copies

We learn by emulating or imitating. To begin our frog dissections this week, I demonstrated proper cutting procedures on a frog. Students watched a... Read more

Flipped Classroom Point

I wrote the following essay as a response to the ISTE Community Point/Counterpoint question: “To Flip, or Not to Flip?” You can see the discussion ... Read more

Why Risk is Scary

I have written a couple of posts lately on risk-taking being an essential component of change in a system. Much of this stems from the risks that I... Read more

It Is Up to Me

I have learned more this year than ever before and I keep coming back to one inescapable truth: If I want education to change, it is up to me to ch... Read more

Reach That One

I had a severe case of the “Mondays” today for some reason. My patience was thin and kids seemed to be a little bit more opinionated about their as... Read more

A Letter to Students and Parents

I began writing my course audit for AP Biology this week, which is always a fun thing to do. Part of my course description includes a short letter ... Read more

Change Teaching by Changing Grading

I have made a few changes in my chemistry class recently that came more out of pragmatic necessity than anything else, but these changes have cause... Read more

Heroes and Villains

We have a saying in the science department here: students lack mental stamina. They are faced with problems, and instead of working together to fin... Read more

Get in touch

Comments are always open. You can get in touch by sending me an email at brian@ohheybrian.com